Legislators Grease The Skids For Stadium

Surplus Would Help Fund Project

Vote Set For Dec. 15

In the days since Gov. John G. Rowland announced a deal to bring the New England Patriots to Hartford, state lawmakers have been besieged by a single question from constituents:

How do I get tickets?

Such sentiment has overwhelmed the few grumbles coming from a state legislature whose top leaders met Wednesday with Rowland to work out a few loose ends and set up a special session for Dec. 15 to vote on the Patriots deal.

Some lawmakers said the state's agreement with Patriots owner Robert K. Kraft is overly generous. Others have expressed concern about whether the team can sell all its expensive luxury suites and club seats -- and thereby avoid putting the state on the hook for millions of dollars a year in guaranteed revenue.

But the street-level support gives an insight into what voters can expect in the special legislative session.

Barring a major unforeseen development, the plan for a $350 million, 68,000-seat stadium is likely to be approved -- and quickly.

To make approval even more likely, Rowland and legislative leaders agreed Wednesday to use millions of dollars from a projected budget surplus next year to reduce the overall cost of the project.

With a surplus now projected at nearly $329 million, the state could spend $100 million or more in cash on the stadium, Rowland and legislative leaders said. Using the surplus cash would reduce the amount of bonding needed for the project and lower the ultimate cost, although it was not clear Wednesday how much money their plan would save.

Lawmakers on both sides endorsed the use of the surplus, which was proposed earlier this week by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin B. Sullivan, D-West Hartford.

With or without the surplus, ``I continue to be cautiously optmistic'' about the stadium plan, Rowland said.

Asked about the luxury suites -- which at $100,000 apiece are expected to be among the most expensive in the country -- Rowland said he is confident they will be fully sold. The state has said it will buy any luxury suites and club seats that go unsold to a maximum liability of $17.5 million a year.

Some critics say Kraft is getting too much with the guarantees, but Rowland defended the plan, saying he rejected a request by the Patriots owner to guarantee that all 68,000 seats be sold to each game. ``There can be an argument all day long over what is lucrative,'' Rowland said. The ultimate question, though, is whether the deal is good for the state and Hartford, he said.

Rowland said he believes it is, calling the stadium deal ``the best economic tool to take Hartford into the next century.''

Legislative leaders were equally upbeat.

House Speaker Thomas D. Ritter, D-Hartford, predicted quick approval of the stadium plan at the Dec. 15 session, which follows a public hearing Dec. 9 at the Capitol.

Ritter called support ``overwhelming'' among his 96-member caucus. ``They want to be for it, but . . . they need to be educated first'' about the details, he said.

``Based on conversations I've had with [Democratic] senators, there's likely to be little opposition,'' he said.

Jepsen, who opposed a plan last year to build a $107 million football stadium on the Storrs campus of the University of Connecticut, said the Patriots deal is radically different.

``It's the one thing that changes the psychology of [Hartford] from a city in decline to one that is in rebirth and rejuvenation, so it's enormously different,'' he said.

He said the UConn plan would have put a stadium in the middle of a rural area and done little or nothing for economic development.

Sen. William H. Nickerson, R- Greenwich, also was skeptical of the UConn plan, and, like Jepsen, opposed a plan a few years ago for an $875 million casino in Bridgeport.

But Nickerson enthusiastically supports the proposed Patriots stadium, calling it a catalyst for economic development in Hartford.

Unlike the casino or the Storrs stadium, the Patriots stadium ``fits in a coherent urban development scheme,'' Nickerson said. ``By linking it with the owners' commitment to operate a hotel and convention center, the stadium complex . . . has the synergy that would lead to other investments and to economic growth.''

The appeal of the stadium extends far beyond greater Hartford, Nickerson said, noting that voters in his hometown of Greenwich have stopped him on the street to ask, ``Hey Bill, can you get me tickets?''

Jepsen said the word on the street in his hometown, Stamford, boils down to one sentence: ``Go Patriots.''

Legislative leaders, aware that the cost of the stadium deal is a potential stumbling block, were enthusiastic about the proposal to use part of the budget surplus to pay for it. Jepsen called it ``good government'' to avoid bonded indebtedness as much as possible.